SANTA CLARA, Calif. — The phone rang before dawn, because the bad news could not wait for the sun. Broncos defensive end Antonio Smith answered the call, and the joy of Super Bowl week was shattered. His father, incarcerated as Inmate No. 116277 in an Oklahoma prison since 1991, was dead at age 58.

We sat together on folding chairs inside a gigantic white tent pitched outside a Bay Area hotel, where the Broncos are encamped during preparation for a game against the Carolina Panthers. The NFL circus had come to town. All around us, Super Bowl hype raged with noisy, relentless questions about quarterbacks Peyton Manning and Cam Newton. The voice of Smith, however, was barely more than a whisper, as he said goodbye to Marty Christopher Williams, his dad.

“My father was as strong and as big as a bull. He was a big man, bigger than me. My family on that side bred big,” said Smith, who was awakened by the terrible news at 6:30 in the morning. “It’s rough. And you know why it’s so rough? I don’t even know if my father knew it. But everything that is me, everything that is good about me, came from striving to be more like the man my father became during the course of his life.”

Four days before the biggest game of his son’s life, Williams died from complications of a recent double-bypass heart surgery. That grim reality was so awful as to seem like a curse. Smith, however, insists he will not leave the team. Not now. He plans to be in uniform Sunday. He knows why.

“As far as me playing in the game? I know the answer,” Smith said. “I’m as much of a warrior as my father is. So I go on. It’s a big part of my purpose in life to be here for the Super Bowl. So I’m going to be here for my brothers in the locker room, in whatever way they need me.”

Denver coach Gary Kubiak addressed the team, letting Smith know the Broncos have strong shoulders to lean on. As he tries to focus on beating the Panthers, however, there’s an injustice gnawing a hole in Smith’s gut. What was the pain that causes a 275-pound defensive lineman to stare into space and fight back tears? It has absolutely nothing to do with football.

“I can’t talk about it, because I get too emotional,” Smith said. “I guess it is what it is.”

His father was convicted of first-degree murder more than two decades ago, way back when this 34-year-old NFL veteran was only a kid in elementary school. Williams entered prison and never left, serving 24 years of a life sentence without parole. Everybody who loves him is convinced it was a death sentence for a crime that Williams did not commit.

“Oh, man. Marty Williams is dead? This is the first I’ve heard,” said Johnny Lombardi, his voice awash with anguish when I told him. “I’m sorry, so sorry.”

Lombardi is a Denver lawyer who investigated Williams’ case in 2013, with the hope that new evidence could set him free. What Lombardi discovered left no doubt in his mind: “He was falsely convicted. It was a witch hunt, a travesty of justice.”

Sandtown is a cluster of shotgun shacks, settled in the late 1880s by freed slaves. It’s a block from where trucks hauling oil or cattle come barreling into Oklahoma City down Interstate 40. According to local lore, the neighborhood earned its name because residents were so poor their homes were built on floors made from sand.

Harold Sassa was found dead in Sandtown on Jan. 4, 1991. Five months later, Williams was convicted of the crime, based on what Lombardi is convinced was false testimony by a woman trying to hide the true identity of the real murderer. “You’ve got a lot of cowboy cops down there in Oklahoma, and two detectives railroaded Marty straight to prison,” Lombardi said.

The walls of the Lexington Correction Center, however, did not stop Smith from being close to his father. They talked regularly, laughed often and loved much. Williams was proud of what his son had achieved with the Broncos, recording 2½ sacks for the league’s top-ranked defense during his 12th NFL season. Williams can get to the quarterback. But he could not get his father out of prison.

Yes, it’s frustrating. And for a father to never know the thrill of his son playing in the Super Bowl? It seems wrong, wrong, wrong.

What gives Smith peace, however, is the certainty big Marty could not wait around for the big game, only because there was a far more important journey to be taken.

“I’m glad he’s finally home. That was the goal: To fight the battle you’ve been put on this Earth to fight. And I know where’s he at right now,” said Smith, his eyes directed toward heaven.

Sunday, after Smith has pulled on his Broncos jersey and grabs his helmet on the way out of the locker room to feel the sunshine on his face at Super Bowl 50, he wishes there were some way to send his late father a message.

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